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WRTV
WRTV, virtual channel 6 (UHF digital channel 25), is an ABC-affiliated television station licensed to Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. Owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, WRTV maintains primary studio facilities on Meridian Street in northwestern Indianapolis (in the middle of Indianapolis' Television Row), with a secondary studio located at Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis; its transmitter is located on the city's northwest side (near Meridian Hills). On cable, WRTV is carried on Comcast Xfinity channel 5, on Charter Spectrum channel 7 and on AT&T U-Verse channel 6. History WFBM-TV The station first signed on the air on May 30, 1949, as WFBM-TV. Founded by the Consolidated Television and Radio Broadcasters subsidiary of the Bitner Group, owners of radio station WFBM (1260 AM, now WNDE), it is the oldest television station in the state of Indiana. The first program broadcast on the station was a documentary titled Crucible of Speed, about the early history of the legendary Indianapolis 500 auto race; this was followed by the inaugural live television broadcast of the event. The station originally operated as a CBS affiliate, although it maintained secondary affiliations with ABC and the DuMont Television Network. WFBM-TV began to split ABC programming with Bloomington-based primary NBC affiliate WTTV (channel 10, which moved to channel 4 in February 1954) when that station signed on in November 1949; both stations lost their affiliations with ABC to WISH-TV (channel 8) when that station signed on in July 1954. WFBM-TV also aired programs from the short-lived Paramount Television Network, among them Time For Beany, Dixie Showboat, Hollywood Reel, Cowboy G-Men, and Hollywood Wrestling. Channel 6 acquired an FM sister in 1955 with the sign-on of WFBM-FM (94.7 FM, now WFBQ). In 1956, WFBM-TV became the market's NBC affiliate, taking the affiliation from WTTV. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network. Bitner merged its broadcasting interests with magazine publisher Time-Life in 1957. In the mid-1960s, WRTV became the first television station in Indiana to begin broadcasting its programming in color. In late October 1970, WFBM-AM-FM-TV were sold to McGraw-Hill in a group deal that also involved Time-Life's other radio and television combinations in Denver, San Diego and Grand Rapids, Michigan; and KERO-TV in Bakersfield, California. In order to comply with the Federal Communications Commission's new restrictions on concentration of media ownership that went into effect shortly afterward, McGraw-Hill was required to sell the radio stations in Indianapolis, Denver, San Diego and Grand Rapids to other companies. Time-Life would later take WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids out of the final deal and retain ownership of that station. By the time the sale was finalized in June 1972, the purchase price for the entire group was just over $57 million. KERO-TV, KLZ-TV (now KMGH-TV) in Denver and KOGO-TV (now KGTV) in San Diego were retained by McGraw-Hill along with WFBM-TV, which subsequently changed its call letters to the present WRTV on June 2. WRTV By the late 1970s, NBC's national ratings crashed to third place, becoming the lowest-rated of the three major U.S. broadcast networks, while ABC rose to the ranks of first place around that same time; as a result, it sought stronger stations to serve as its affiliates in several markets. The two networks swapped affiliations in Indianapolis on June 1, 1979, with WRTV becoming the market's new ABC affiliate, and WTHR (channel 13) becoming an NBC affiliate. As a result, WRTV became the third television station in the Indianapolis market to affiliate with ABC. In the process, it became the first television station in the Indianapolis market (WTTV would become the second Indianapolis station 35 years later when that station became a CBS affiliate), and of the few television stations in the United States to have served as a primary affiliate of all three heritage broadcast networks. On January 31, 1995, WBAK-TV in Terre Haute (which changed its call letters to WFXW in 2005) ended its 22-year affiliation with ABC to become that market's original Fox affiliate, citing the low viewership it had suffered due to the then-overabundance of higher-rated ABC stations in adjacent markets (including WRTV) that were receivable in the area. This left viewers with only fringe access from WRTV (which can be received in Terre Haute via an outdoor antenna and became the default ABC affiliate on cable providers on the Indiana side of the market), and other out-of-market ABC stations from Evansville, Indiana and Champaign, Illinois (both of which were carried on cable on the Illinois side of the market) as Terre Haute did not have enough stations to support full-time affiliations from four networks (only three commercial full-power stations—WTWO, WTHI-TV and WBAK—are licensed to the market, and ABC opted not to relegate itself to a secondary affiliation). On September 1, 2011, WFXW (which changed its callsign to WAWV-TV) voluntarily disaffiliated from Fox and rejoined ABC as part of a long-term affiliation renewal between ABC and the Nexstar Broadcasting Group (which manages the station through owner Mission Broadcasting) involving the company's existing ABC stations in nine other markets; WRTV was dropped from most Terre Haute area cable providers by May 28, 2012. WRTV became the first television station in the Indianapolis market to launch its own website (www.theindychannel.com) in the late 1990s; it later became the first to offer a mobile website (6News OnTheGo) the following decade. In 1998, the station changed its on-air branding to "RTV6," however its newscasts were instead branded as 6 News until 2001 and again from 2006 to 2012. On October 3, 2011, The McGraw-Hill Companies announced that it would sell its seven-station broadcasting division, including WRTV, to the E. W. Scripps Company for $212 million. The sale received FCC approval on November 29, 2011, and was formally consummated on December 30. In June 2012, WRTV opened a secondary facility at the studios of news/talk radio station WIBC (93.1 FM) in downtown Indianapolis; most of the station's newscasts are produced out of the Monument Circle studio, which underwent renovations to house production facilities. This resulted from a multi-year agreement with WIBC's owner Emmis Communications that was signed that April, in which WRTV also provides news content for WIBC with some staff appearing on both stations. In May 2014, Scripps announced that WRTV's North Meridian Street studios would begin handling the master control operations of the company's 19 television stations as early as July of that year, expanding upon an existing regional centralcasting hub built under McGraw-Hill ownership. The expanded operations created 10 new jobs. Scripps renewed ABC affiliations for WRTV and nine other stations through 2019 on December 10, 2014. Category:ABC Affiliates Category:Channel 6 Category:Indianapolis Category:Indiana Category:Television channels and stations established in 1949 Category:1949 Category:Former CBS Affiliates Category:Former NBC Affiliates Category:Former Paramount Affiliates Category:Former DuMont Affiliates Category:Former NTA Film Network affiliates Category:E.W. Scripps Company Category:VHF Category:ABC Indiana